@Diablo Takes Its Revenge

@Diablo posted a follow up Friday on a question from Thursday, about the Barbarian‘s Revenge skill. Here’s the original question, plus the second round.

How is the Barbarian’s “Revenge” skill nowadays? It was annoying that you had to watch your hot bar for when it was available.—Grug

That WAS annoying. It has a chance to proc automatically now when the barb is hit. You’d want to avoid Dodge with a revenge build.—Diablo

So I assume it’s a Trait now? I would have been fine with an active skill if there was some clear indication that it was available.—Grug

No it’s a skill, it’s a proc, which isn’t quite the same as a passive.—Diablo

Grug said what a number of you guys said in comments, that the skill change sounded like Revenge had been made into a passive skill. Instead it’s a “proc.” Whazzat? Like most RPG terms, it’s covered in the Reference section of the DiabloWiki.

”Proc” can be used as a noun or a verb, the term seems to have been popularized in Everquest, and it’s commonly used in WoW as well. (Of course!) Basically it’s a “process” that triggers automatically, some % of the time. For example, critical hits are procs in Diablo II, since as a character uses say, the Electrocute skill, every hit has a % chance to trigger a lightning critical hit. Hence Revenge is now a skill that, once invested in, will trigger a fast spinning counterstrike by the Barbarian, automatically, some % of the time. (Rather than requiring the player to click it, as at last year’s Blizzcon.

Thus as Bashiok said, a Barbarian who wanted his Revenge skill to proc often wouldn’t want a lot of Dodge, since Revenge only triggers a % of the time *after* the Barbarian takes a melee hit. (Remember that defense reduces the damage taken, not the % chance of being hit, in Diablo III. Thus high Defense and low Dodge with Revenge would be great, since you’d take tiny damage from lots of hits, and would lash out with your Revenge regularly.)

We don’t know of any other skills that only work as procs, but perhaps others have been added since Blizzcon? It would seem odd if Revenge were the one skill that works in this way, after all. We do know that Runestone effects will add proc effects. For instance one Runestone in Zombie Dog gives a dying Mongrel a % chance to spawn a health orb when it dies. I can envision procs as a useful rune bonus to lots of other skills, too. Imagine the Monk’s combo skills gaining a % chance to trigger a Frost Nova, or the Demon Hunter’s arrows to trigger a stun or knock back.

Does that sort of function bonus seem cool to you guys as a Runestone effect? A sort of bonus added on top of the base skill? Or do you want whole new functions and graphics for your skill rune effects, like you get with Hydra and Weapon Throw and Plague of Toads?

Revenge’s description on the skill calculator page says: “Revenge has a 10% chance to become active for a short time when you are hit by an attack.” This seems to indicate that it’s a reactive skill.

My guess is that the skill is not usable under normal circumstances, and is only available to use when it “procs” off of you taking a hit. Something like Revenge from warriors in WoW, only it has a 10% chance to activate on hit, rather than on dodge/block/parry.

EDIT: I believe the term “proc” as it is used in games is actually short for “Programmed Random Occurrence”